The underused GM tip that will make players obsessed with your game 

My group's Paladin was really excited about his recent immunity to 'frightened', so last week I had a devil try to use a 'frightened' ability on him which he proudly announced that he fears no devil. His turn was up next, in which he used 'abjure enemy' to instead frighten the devil and the devil failed its save. It's moments like this that make me so proud of my players.

Makes me think of Brennan Lee Mulligan talk about building the story for Fantasy High "If you know one of your players wants to be an Inquisitive Rogue and you don't give him a grand mystery to solve, you're an asshole."

Good rule of thumb: don’t attack your players weaknesses, attack their strengths.

Someone wise once said "a character sheet is a love letter to the DM"- basically, if your players put something on their sheet, it's because they want to see what cool shit you will do with it in your game!

I love this video! A little story that feeds into this point: Recently, my DM threw a clay golem at our party that was immune to piercing or bludgeoning damage and left me, the rogue, unable to land damage with any of my weapons. So what I did instead was use my superior acrobatics to climb up the golem, sit on its shoulders, and cover its eyes to give my spellcaster party members advantage on attacks and make the golem attack with disadvantage. This went on for three rounds, with the golem trying and failing to shake me off, until our spellcasters killed it. This was one of my favorite moments in the last year of campaigning, and I felt so damn clever for thinking of a way to help without the use of any of my weapons AND allowed me to be a kickass acrobatic rogue. I felt rewarded for my creative problem solving and the whole party had a great time with this fight. I'll definitely be sure to keep this tip in mind in my upcoming campaign!

Honestly, I agree with Ginny. Don’t nerf a player, make them feel power. Because I’m response you can give them more of a challenging thrall. Give the Monk an ability to deflect spells if they get Mage Slayer but make that Mage Harder to fight.

"Shoot the monk!" is probably the best DM advice I've ever gotten... My players ended up enjoying their characters SO MUCH more after I started following this advice. Nowadays I even ask my players outside of the game what they like the most about their characters so I can execute this the best as I can. And let me tell you: it's still possible to challenge players and make things dangerous. The players are just enjoying those encounters more...

The one trick I always keep in mind when a players' ability seems too strong: I attack that ability specifically, instead of denying it. E.g. my party's Paladin has an insane AC of 23, heavy armor master, and resistance to fire and Necrotic damage. But instead of having a lot of DEX-saves and ranged attacks that ignore the Paladin, or putting only damage types on the field that he doesn't reduce, I look for monsters with high to-hit bonuses and high damage numbers on those five damage types (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, fire, necrotic). So he gets to feel epic about surviving the onslaught, while still being challenged to do so.

This seems so obvious but you're SO right that it's soooo often a huge problem at tables. Thank you so much for saying it so clearly and way better than I have ever managed!

Absolutely agree, Don't Nerf them, let them use their cool abilities sometimes, but also challenge them to be creative in overcoming their weaknesses and flaws

Wonderful video. I once heard someone say "Don't attack the character's weakness, attack their strengths."

"Why are you letter her take it at all?" This is the question to ask. Occasionally throw in a hiccup to make the character think out of the box, but don't always counter the ability. Amazing advice Ginny, as always. I've been DMing for decades, and I still always learn something from you. You've come across so much wisdom in your time playing/DMing.

If anyone's looking for examples of this in play, Brennan Lee Mulligan is amazing at this sort of flexibility with PC ideas!

Kind of repeating what you already said, but if your players have specific or even niche abilties from their subclass, I highly recommend leaning into them every now and then. One of my proudest moments as a DM was seeing our Fey Wanderer Ranger's face light up when she realized she got to use her Beguiling Twist ability during a fight.

I think a big aspect of allowing players to pick up abilities and then nerfing them in the actual campaign is about giving the illusion of choice. It's really easy to hype D&D around a "be anything, do anything" focus, and then when the DM realizes that an ability or skill annoys them, they avoid letting it come up in play (even subconsciously!). It also acts as a way to shift the blame -- when the DM just bans a skill or ability, then it's very obviously on the DM that it won't get used, but when it just doesn't come up in play, it can feel more like it's the player's fault for choosing a "useless" ability, rather than the DM not letting it be used. Should acknowledge, I'm saying this as a DM who's realized that they're doing this, but I'm early enough into my campaign to correct it!

This is one hundred percent the best thing to do. One of my players is playing an assassin rogue. He’s really into character optimisation and is quite aware of the fact that most of the assassin subclass features are useless in combat and very situational (specifically the infiltration ones at 9th and 13th levels). So you bet your ass there’ll be a political intrigue arc at 9th level.

This is exactly why I'm letting one of my players play a Mystic next campaign. He is so ridiculously overly happy now because he likes playing weird, fucky classes like that, and I'm excited because he always uses his weird, fucky class stuff to push me into being a better and more flexible DM. I love it when my players have a "I have a thing for that!" moment that I completely did not expect and absolutely did not plan for that changes the whole direction of the session. And I love it when I can delicately sneak in things that will surprise THEM with a moment like that. Some of the biggest smiles I've screenshotted have been moments like that.

Challenges aren't the fun part, overcoming the challenges are. So let your players overcome them :) Such a great video 🙌

I am a fan of letting the players feel confident in their powers: it'll often lead to them getting in over their heads and *that* makes for gorgeous story

Absolutely right! Especially that "Holy shit I have something for this!" Moment. I was once playing a bard, feeling useless as a shogoth was steamroller us into what was sure to be a TPK. Many of us were trapped inside apart from our healer, and I was reading through one of my magic items, an olham harp. I noticed that the shogoth was taking up nine spaces, and the olham harp has firestorm. That is nine hits on the shogoth, that's weak to fire. I roasted us all alive, but we managed to stabilise everyone, turning an almost certain TPK, into a memorable fight.

Well said, Ginny. I don't get adversarial DMs. Personally, I'm my players' biggest fan, and when their characters get to do something cool I cheer right alongside them.

I agree with all of this, but would like to add one thing! It's true, that constantly countering the PC's abilities would be bad form, but also keep in mind with things like reoccurring villains, that SOME bad guys will learn from their mistakes and may learn to counter SOME things the party can do (but obviously not all). Of course, I think this is a little different than the DM countering things just to counter them. With this scenario, I usually also add something in that a PC may be able to do to thwart the bad guy as well, to give that moment of "turning the tables". It's definitely a balancing act!

Thanks for putting this into words! I had a thought similar to this when they announced the Plasmid race. I thought they were to over powered because they are goop people that can squeeze into really small holes. They can just go anywhere they want! And then a friend told me, "sure you can't stop them from getting into any room you make, but you can control what's waiting for then in that room when they get there."

One of my favorite moments in my last campaign was when my three level 4 players were breaking into a prison camp to rescue one of the adventurers' family. I set it up so the camp was surrounded by a rocky ridge with a single entrance that was extremely heavily guarded, far more than the party could reasonably defeat themselves. The idea I had for the session was that the players would sneak into and out of the camp without alerting the gate guards, but instead our rogue snuck around behind the gate while the other two drew the guards' attention to the front. The rogue was then able to singlehandedly one-shot 2/3rds of the guards via sneak attack while our Blood Hunter tanked the hits and the Bard kept everyone topped up on health and Bardic Inspiration. Each class got to lean into their strengths and the synergy between players was electrifying. By playing to their classes' strengths the party took on an encounter with a challenge XP two times higher than what's considered a deadly encounter. My players got to feel like gods and I was so excited for them I gave them all a point of inspiration. 😝

I think another point that ties into this is acknowledging when you as a DM make mistakes. I did in my last session. I gave all my players a magic item for completing a flyting challenge. Yes we did indeed have a rap battle lmao. There was an oversight on my end though due to how much fun we were all having. I forgot that this item not only gave them a +2 to Charisma but they also gain advantage on persuasion checks… yeah that could be a problem. The thing is even though they can definitely abuse this power it was my mistake. When it was brought up they immediately thought that I was going to change how the item worked or find a way to take the it back, but I said “No, you guys get to keep it. Im not going to take that fun away from you because I was careless”. In the end communication with your group is what matters and acknowledging when you as a DM make mistakes is a key factor into a great D&D experience!

This is just more than DM advice, this is amazing life advice. IRL, it's so much more fun to play co-op with people you care about, rather than PvP'ing them!

Sometimes it’s fun to send your monk a creature that’s immune to stun, or your bard a creature that immune to charm, or your sorcerer a creature that’s immune to fire, to force them into creativity. Sometimes it’s fun to let your players flex their abilities. It’s never DM vs Players. It’s the Dm and the players working together to make a kickass story

Ginny is having a lot of fun recently with the "Comment Section" cut-aways, and honestly, I love that for her.

I think the number 1 thing I do that make my players invest themselves in the world is: Likable NPCs! When you create a cast of characters your players engage with, it makes them care about the game all the more. If your players care about characters you create, their investment with the quests those NPCs give will be more genuine and real. They care about helping the character, not just getting the reward. But in the same vein as what you’re saying in this video, NEVER make ally NPCs take spotlight from the players. Your players are the heroes of their story, let them feel like heroes!

I get their initial impulse, but I also sort of don’t get the idea that DMs must be the exact anti-thesis to their players. Like the point of DND isn’t to “win” as the DM, it’s to make a fun game. Challenging is good, but there’s a difference between “How do I make this challenging” and “How do I keep my players at square one forever”

I think (esp. as a new DM) it can be intimidating when you realise mid-session that you forgot a character had a certain ability and now you're worried your whole encounter is "ruined" (i.e. won't go how you expected and won't be a challenge). That might produce the panic response of "oh... this technically isn't a language" or "um actually this is... magic darkness - your darkvision doesn't work." But ime, better to let the players breeze through the obstacle they're specialised for - just throw in some extra or harder ones later!

This is a subclause of the "Rule of Cool." They have these skills for a reason, a good DM deliberately gives them places to use them. Except that one skill for that one fight. You know the one I'm talking about. Always remember, D&D is a shared narrative experience. The players and the DM are *not* oppositional forces. The DM wins when the players do.

This is great advice. I learned this the hard way when a player left the campaign after feeling powerless. After that I realized that you want to empower people and give them what they are looking for in the campaign. Not make it easy, but payoff whatever they want to experience plying dnd. That's how I start every season prep now : how to give every player something.

Great advice in this video, but am I the only one who found that ad’s presenting character just pure genius?

I've been having a bad time with my current DM constantly nerfing core aspects of my class like paladin smites completely and I'm truly thinkin of leaving it not just because of that but it was a major influence. DMs this is a real issue

I had a prospective player ask about being a Kalashtar, and little did she know, saving rolls would play a HUGE role in my homebrew campaign. She said she was fine with changing races, but I was like, "no no, it's fine" and immediately started thinking of how great the racial abilities would mess with my planned campaign. I panicked for a few seconds before thinking "this is a huge advantage" and started to feel excited thinking of all the ways I would have to adapt, keeping that ability in mind. Unfortunately, she left after session 0 because of other stuff, but it was neat to think about

Ginny, you ROCK! I’ve been playing since 1982 and have seen the game (and other rpgs) go through a bunch of cycles. I’m a big fan of the DM being a…big fan of the players. Don’t coddle or Monty Hall them but provide a game for them that is fun and challenging. You share common sense wisdom and your production (which is exceptional) makes you one of my go to channels for thoughtful infotainment. I love your cosplays and just the whole package of what you put out. Thank you!

Every time Ginny posts a video her eyes get 10% bigger. Also, Thank you for the "shoot your monk" phrase. Its been a core of how I like games but had no name for it. Keep up the good work GD!

Yes yes yes! I’m preparing to DM a homebrew campaign for the first time, and every time I find myself wandering near nerfing territory, I ask myself why I’m worried about my friends having too much fun/feeling strong and capable. I can always add another monster or indulge in a crazy idea I hadn’t thought of, but I can never un-bummer a player who was excited about something and is told no, or that never comes up at all.

I feel like this can be expanded into if everyone is equally overpowered (enemies included) than nobody is overpowered. It's just fun.

Oh yes, the whole "Your ability ruin my gameplan so it don't work" DM action. As someone who's father who is mostly DM who does this all the time. I can say that it really do ruin the game. I have played a Light Cleric who's anti-darkness magic ability they can use once per day did not work. I have played a flying owlin only for there to be invisible walls 5 feet above ground level. So many tales I could tell. This is why I barely play DnD anymore, DM's please stop. Let your player's do their cool things and find some other way around it.

This is needs to be in the DMs Guide! First focusing on the enabling player abilities so that they are the solutions to obstacles helps you avoid so many DM pitfalls. Thanks Ginny

Hands down best advice ever. One of my favorite moments playing as a wizard was having an epic duel with a lich and being able to counterspell his disintegrate to give an opening to my team to kill him. Just felt so badass.

Couldn't agree more. The 'wanting a tough challenge' vs 'wanting to beat the party' is a line that should be carefully navigated. Everything you said about giving them the ability to shine and feel good about their characters provides so many super memorable moments.

The story is about the players. You set the foundation for the story, lore, and characters but it is the players story. Not the DM's. Let them feel powerful! It is funner for everyone.

One of my favourite moments in a game I DMed was doing something I knew wouldn't work! It was a BBEG Bard casting Hold Person on the Hexblood party member--Hold Person doesn't work on Fey. I knew that as a DM, but the BBEG didn't know she was a fey, and it really got to show how cocky he was, especially because he had burned his 9th level spell slot just to show off right before that lmfao

7:21 I wanna make a little addendum to this part that I imagine Ginny can support. You may be a "bad" DM if there are certain basic stuff you can't manage but remember that, ultimately, DM'ing is a hobby and nobody has any moral right to judge you for the amount of effort you put in to a hobby. If you decide that you feel the most secure running a game where everyone plays standard human champion fighters without access to feats or multiclassing and don't wanna put in the work to facilitate more than this, then nobody can judge you for it. They can simply opt not to play with you, so be prepared to maybe not find any willing players, but don't let anyone judge your character. You have no obligation to put more work in to a hobby than you want to.

This is why I love Twilight Clerics. Having a player passively heal the party, allows me to run much stronger monsters earlier on in the game. That’s a win-win

This is incredibly important. I had this instinct when I started out as well, but I'm happy to say it's waned over the years. Great advice and another great video! Funnily enough, I did, in fact, shoot my monk last session. With a cannonball. I let them count it as a projectile and they seemed pretty happy being able to decrease that damage by a decent amount!

Ginny Di, Thank you for another great video. My wife and I are big fans. Funny story, I bought her one of your calendars for Christmas, only to find out she bought one for me too. Now we have two in the house.

This reminds me of the "player with a flying speed" debate. There are flying monsters, there are archers, there are spells like Earth Bind, there are rooms with ceilings. Let your player fly. Nerfing your players abilities is just lazy DMing

*That Dryathrall was perfect! The makeup, the voice, the acting! Best Ginny Di character by far!*

Loved the video! We need more DMs remembering that we’re not the player’s enemy. We’re there to make their characters legends and heroes in their world

OMG when the she suddenly got distracted I nearly fell out my chair laughing. Damn that would have been gold at any table if a player acted that out talking to an NPC.

A milestone in every DM's/GM's life is when they realize they are not supposed to compete with the PCs, but to build one shared experience together with the players. OP powers are there to give that power trip experience for the players they see from movies - if we give them opportunities to shine, everyone will be more happy with the game.

D&D 4.0 had a really nice point in (I think) the campaign book; When the wizard learns a fire spell, face the party with stronger monsters that are weak to fire. Let the wizard feel awesome for learning this new spell. And then a couple levels later, start moving in with things that resist or even are immune to fire and dungeons that don't have much in flammable objects so they feel like they have to learn something new or try something new to continue, which then cycles back to the beginning. Importantly, the wizard feels like they NEEDED that fire spell they chose to learn. Yes, this is a little blunt, but the idea is, as you said, to make the player feel like they are contributing and winning instead of sitting back and waiting to be allowed to do something. I've said this to almost every DM and GM I've been under and always because they did what you warned against; I would far rather make a different character because you don't want ability X than make a character around ability X basically faff about doing nothing because they keep getting punished for having the ability and/or using the ability.

I had a DM that pissed me off so much. I rolled a fighter class focused on mounted combat. The DM knew my whole backstory and everything. Then he started his campaign......Water world type setting. Meaning floating city and lots of Naval Warfare. Both the druid and I was PEEEVED

Love these, slow adjustments in line with advice is the best way to improve 🤙🤙

I accidentally chose the perfect campaign for all of my players, everything fitted together so nicely and it’s super satisfying haha.

Dungeon world DM principle: "Be a fan of your players!". When I do a one shot with DW I always designed it that way, that I creat obvious situations for the charakters to use their abilities. If I have a thieve, there better be a locked door and a trap. I have a paladin, there will be some minor fose that he can command to stand back and flee. The Dungeon World DM rules are really great teachers for making the game fun for the players.

I wasn’t DM, but there was a specific moment when we needed to sneak into a mansion that was pretty well guarded. But I had a solution. I knew the spell fly, and our rogue had a cloak of invisibility. Stealth strike, baby!

To be fair most monsters are immune to poison. That might not be the DM intentionally screwing over the player. But yes I agree in principle, this is great advice Ginny.

A good DM creates scenarios where a player can use their features, and skills, and for each player to shine in their own way. A great DM creates scenarios, where many of the features can be double-edged swords, like stabbing the back of a giant, and causing it to chase the rogue around the room, providing attacks of opportunity for the rest of the party to take. An awful DM removes the Sneak Attack class feature and doesn't provide the opportunity for the rogue to be bludgeoned to death by a massive tree trunk because he stabbed the giant in the butt. The best tip I can imagine to make it fun for everyone. One phrase: Moderation in all things. Not everything they face should be immune to fire, because someone picked up a fireball scroll, and not everything should be immune to bludgeoning damage because the fighter got the hammer he dreamed of. You put it very well, Ginny. This does need to be discussed more in game mastering communities. Thanks for the video!

I still play AD&D 2nd Edition, and have since the 1980's. Honestly, I'm still "new" at some things. I've discovered that challenging, not nerfing, a player's ability or magic item can make it extremely fun for all of the players. If a character has the ability to talk to plants or animals, then I, as the DM, talk like a plant or animal would. They don't experience things like a humaniod would. Birds don't know "common" words, but understand "shiny things" or colorful things. It's more fun that way. I can think of an adventure were a Thief/Scout character had a basic Ring of Invisibility. He used it to find the Necromancer that the party was trailing. He found the Necromancer in a mausoleum, casting a summoning spell. The Thief/Scout threw a dagger at the Necromancer, which made the Thief/Scout visible(offensive action). The dagger hit, but didn't damage the Necromancer, but did disrupt the spell. The Necromancer had already summoned 3 Hell Hounds, however, so he had them attack the Thief/Scout. Hell Hounds, in 2nd Edition, can see hidden/invisible 50% of the time, and as they have keen hearing they pursued him relentlessly! The player had the best time! At first, he didn't understand how they could still be chasing him, but he never encountered Hell Hounds before( I didn't call them Hell Hounds, I called them large, vicious brown dogs with red glowing eyes. He was surprised when they chased him and breathed fire!) It takes work to make it fun and challenging, but it is so great when it all comes together!

Insightful. Also I heavily appreciate the subtitles!! Thank you for making your videos accessable

The only spell I've ever really struggled with is detect thoughts, mainly because I run a game that is often shrouded in mystery and espionage. Its hard to find the line between "no you get no information" and "here's the whole plot, this character knows everything." I've been really enjoying Campaign 3 of CR and watching how Matt handles that spell. Great tips all around.

I hardly ever look for ways to prevent my players from using their special "thing" whatever that is (unless it's being abused then it just needs to be moderated but not taken away). I always look for ways to highlight it and make them feel good that it came into play in the game, sometimes making them the hero the party needed at that moment. Mostly it's about making judgment calls, that's what the DM's job is. This comes with the stipulation that my players are not allowed to "hide" their skills and abilities from me. I need to know them going in because I am here to tell a story, not to be the BBEG the party needs to defeat.

In addition to class features, there's these four little boxes on the character sheet that are just begging to be mined for ideas that make the players feel engaged. It is so easy to do, because the players fill these in with exactly what they want to see happen in the game and all you need to do is include some of it at intervals. Does the personality trait state that they pore over every book they find? Have them stumble into an ancient library when they aren't in a rush. Are they the type that always helps out the underdog? Instead of encountering another gnoll warband, have them chance upon a gnoll warband ramming down the door of a poor farmer's house. Do they have an obsession with dragonchess? Have a minor noble invite one for a game at his manor sometime because he heard that the hero was the player to beat.

Honestly, my biggest problem is saying no when DMing. I just had a meltdown trying yo overexplain to a player why he couldnt be a homebrew Gunslinger (not Critical Role), even though he was cool about it. Thank you for putting to words the struggle with overthinking players' power levels, Ginny

i once allowed one of my players to be a shadow sorccerer drow with the elven acuracy feat. meant if they cast darkness on an amulet the darkness stays centered on the character and they had advatage with an extra d20. 3d20 drop lowest two. instead of giving my enemys dark vision i just went with it and it turned out, in really small areas this feature messes with a lot fo the other player features as many spells or abilitys need line of sight. still pretty strong but not impossible to keep the fights interesting.

Thank you!! I've had this conversation with a few other players, but when brought to dms it devolves into a "merits of dm vs player" discussion, thank you for laying it out so clearly

Yes! Thank you! As a DM, when I'm planning sessions, or even whole campaigns, I literally go through my players' character sheets and write down situations in which their abilities will come up; especially very niche ones, like Druidic or Thieves' Cant.

Completely true! I also tend to do this, and I didn´t meant it mean. I was just afraid that it will break the game. After starting watching Critical Role I saw that the players can use pretty cool skills and it doesn´t mess up the game. Now this is also Ginny Di approved, nice!

I've been doing this in games for years and fully support it. The characters are heroes. Yes, there should be plenty of challenges, but there should also be plenty of opportunities for the people playing the heroic characters to actually feel heroic.

So glad your video popped up in my feed I forgot about your channel because it never shows up in my recommendations, but this reminded me just how lovely and interesting your videos are. Also my bookshelf curses you for tempting me with another kickstarter for a book I'll have to try to shove on there

I have a story about a dm nerfing players, consistently. When we first started playing the campaign almost every enemy had non magical weapon resistance. Every one. Which left me (a gunslinger) and our fighter honestly kind of annoyed and bored. Its not nice to feel useless in a fight, and even worse in every fight. This only changed after we got magical weapons. But at the start of a campaign its hard to get those, so it took a while. The point is yeah don't make players feel useless because you keep nerfing them

That's been a problem for my first four or so years playing dnd and other ttrpgs, as my dm was very adversarial (having been introduced to the game by an adversarial dm as well). Besides 100% agreeing with your point, it's definitely a good reminder. At times, we just forget to add spots for our PCs to shine (like a druid talking to animals/plants for clues). Great video as per usual, love it!

I found this same mentality in the escape room industry. Game designers forget that helping the players have fun is their objective, not inventing puzzles so difficult no one can solve them.

Your dices are GORGEOUS and I love that dice tower in the intro.

Gosh, yours really is the only YT channel where I actually watch the add you made, because yours are always brilliant! =D On-topic: you are completely right. That's the way to do it. I allow really a lot of things, until they use it not to just play, but to power play.

"Attack your players' strengths, not their weaknesses"

I usually ignore my players abilities and simply do what I was planning. Let the players live in the world you created. Don't change the world to counter the players.

I dont visit your channel often, but every time i do is helpful and lovely.

Great advice. I'm fairly new to the game and DM for my kids. They love it when I add something that lets their character shine.

In a game I play in as a Barbarian, the DM made a fight that was designed to challenge me in a big way. It was a lot of Wisdom saves and the creature dealt Physic damage plus it was resistant to non magical attacks. Really tough on my totem barbarian. However the DM made sure we had the tools to succeed. The Cleric was able to make my weapon magical as well as his own, and the wizard was able to play some Battlefield control. It was a super tough fight that was so well designed to challenge our party. I absolutely loved it!

I wish this video was longer so we could go deeper into this subject. I feel this topic is so vast and nuanced 10 minutes couldn't do it justice! ^^ Of course, "letting the PC's abilities shine" is always good advice - but we could go on the _why_ GMs may sometimes get in a mindset that works counters to this, as well as game balance, encounter design and players expectations. Looking forward to a follow-up video on this topic! :D

Well said Ginny! This is great advice for experienced DM's and new. It's about having fun for everyone first. Thanks for a great insight to a common challenge.

Great video, as always! It's really fun seeing the DiCU unfolding

Ginny - tysm! I always love your advice 😁 definitely going to put something along these lines as a mantra as a post-it in my screen to remind myself!

This is so well put!! I feel like it falls into the similar vein of rewarding characters for creative ideas, even if they weren't the solution you expected. If a player comes up with a crazy idea that makes sense and rolls well, reward them for that! Some DMs need to realise you are DMing for your players, they're not just playing for you! Reward their ideas and embrace their skills, don't punish them if they're not telling the story you had in mind. If you can't do that, write a book 🤷‍♀️

That is such a great point! I love this! Thank you for this perspective shift!

I honestly have had this whole thing in my head for ages and I'm so glad it is being said! Throw stuff to play to their abilities and class features, pull them into the story y'know. The characters are central to the story, so if the story is tied into who the characters are and what they do, THAT IS THE POINT!!!

Yes! Some of my favorite moments in our campaign has been from our strengths shining through. We faced a Lich once who filled a large portion of the room with a poisonous gas, but my Druid was immune to poison so he went into the cloud of poisonous gas to hide and still fight from a distance. There was another session where our rogue swept through an entire train to gather objects, and was just flawless! It was incredible! And I absolutely love moments like that!

It's all about that balance. I always find it fun to figure out this kind of thing. Especially with encounters, it's fun to figure out a way to tailor an encounter for a character to be extra useful in or one they may have to change things up to stay as useful. If I got a character who casts almost exclusively fire spells you bet I'm gonna get an encounter in there with monsters who are vulnerable to fire, but at some point they'll also most certainly face something resistant or even immune to it. Great vid Ginny :) this is always a good reminder

Just found your channel and have been watching a lot. Really enjoying the content

Lovely Video. Working with the strengths and not the weaknesses of people and let everybody have their own moment in which they can shine is a very empowering thing. Thank you for this kind of video 👍🏻 As a relatively new DM I always look for good advice that feels right and this video is exactly what I needed to hear/see ❤️

I love all your videos -- smart, insightful and very useful!!! I've played off and on for almost 40 years and am about to DM for the first time -- your more holistic DM tips are SO GOOD!!!

First time I came across this channel. Gets my like because DMs can get weirdly anxious about countering their players, and not enough peeps highlight it out there. Reward your players, D&D is a cooperative game, not a competition. That said, the 2 times I've played as against our Table's main DM it's been all about countering each other. So y'know, it's okay if it turns into a competition between your players, and against your players - if it's okay with your table. Just remember, it has to be okay with everyone playing y'all

100% agree. I see conversations spin up about this all the time and always find myself shaking my head. It's refreshing to see someone with a decent take on this. "...You're probably not a good DM." Damn straight.

YES! I build my key encounters with my players' abilities in mind, not to make things harder for them but to give them opportunities to have Shining Moments. Still, your video is an excellent reminder to not only keep an eye out for what's on the character sheet, but remember the intent behind why players made this particular character. I sometimes forget that each person at my table built their characters with a specific purpose in mind: a character who is charming, a character who is strong, a character who is faithful -- all these things ought to be acknowledged whenever possible. Thank you for the video, Ginny Di!